Items

If you’re looking for classic, OG Albariño, you’ve gotta start with Bodegas Zárate. Back in the 1950s, Ernesto Zárate was the first to bottle single-vineyard Albariño and the first to effectively put this racy, aromatic variety on the world’s vinous map. He pioneered the high-quality winemaking techniques that are still used today. He founded the annual Cambados Albariño Fiesta and won it so many times he had to withdraw permanently from competition.

Today, Eulogio Pomares, the seventh generation, is steering the winery into the 21st century with biodynamic farming and low-intervention winemaking. His vines are ancient—from the oldest documented Albariño vineyard in the area, planted before phylloxera in 1850—and he farms them with care. All new plantings are massale selections from the estate’s old vines. He uses local seashells and seaweed as treatments instead of insecticide and fertilizers. He hasn’t tilled the soils since 1994, allowing a diverse micro-ecosystem to emerge and nourish his vines. In turn, his vines produce flavorful wines that showcase the freshness of the nearby Atlantic ocean. These are age-worthy and complex, some of the best examples of the varietal you can find. With centuries of winemaking tradition under this family’s belt, Bodegas Zárate is an undeniable legend in the region—but it’s the vibrant, lip-smacking wines that keep us coming back.

Reviews

Bodegas Zarate 2017 Albarino, Rias Baixas DOThe Wine AdvocateRating: 92 (2/28/2019)
The entry-level Albariño wears just the winery name, of which I tasted the current 2017 Zárate, a clean, fresh and expressive varietal wine with classical aromas of white flowers, very clean and open. It's very approachable and gentle with nice balance, integrated acidity and very good freshness, and it has that dry sensation in the palate, possibly from the granite soils, linear and straight. It's elegant and really easy to drink.

Bodegas Zarate 2017 Albarino, Rias Baixas DODecanterRating: 92 (7/1/2019)
Anything that Eulogio Pomares does turns to gold (not just Albarino - seek out his reds too). This is his 'straightforward' Albarino and it's textbook in its refinement, a natural yeast fermentation and three months on lees developing fine complexity.